Eric Brill's Blog on Innovation and Management

 "in a message to an online electronic bulletin board at 11:44 a.m. on Sept. 19, 1982, during a discussion about the limits of online humor and how to denote comments meant to be taken lightly.

"I propose the following character sequence for joke markers: :-)," wrote Fahlman. "Read it sideways."

I would like to set the record straight that this is an ABSOLUTE CROCK!

Here is a posting I made to a public discussion list on August 3, 1982:

August 3, 1982

I believe we could significantly increase world productivity if we used "graphical shortcuts" as a way to communicate more efficiently via ascii.  I just got an awesome 300 baud modem but even downloading at these extreme zippy speeds, it would be good if we could shorten download times.  So here's what I'm thinking.  Say you're writing the sentence: "Yesterday I sat under a tree that was bending to the left from the wind."  Why not simply say: "Yesterday I sat under a \".  Or instead of "I love staring at the beautiful blue crashing ocean waves" one could simply say: "I love staring at the ~".  Along those same lines:

I bought a basketball signed by Magic Johnson --> I bought a O

Three pine trees under the night stars --> ^^^ under ***

Look at that snowman made up of two small snowballs instead of the standard 3 big snowballs pushing on a taut string with its finger --> Look at that :-)

Wow, I could have sworn there used to be 2 mountain peeks over there and now I only see one --> M N

Just a thought.  I'll write again later -- I'm off to see Joan Jett in concert.  Meeeow.

Eric "TRS-80 ROCKS" Brill

While I am not one who likes to brag or cry for credit, I felt it was important to clarify this mistake.  I'll post Scott E. Fahlman's apology email as soon as I receive it.

"Whether you think you can or can't, you're right." -Henry Ford

"I think I can ... I think I can." -Little Engine That Could

Last week I was on vacation and the hotel I stayed at had an exercise room.  The first night there I went to the exercise room and wanted to use the bench press machine.  The pin was at the wrong weight.  I tried to change the pin but it was stuck.  I fiddled with it for a while, then assumed it must just be jammed stuck so I gave up.

The second night I went to the exercise room and saw that the pin was still set at the wrong weight.  I didn't even try to change it.

The third night I went to the exercise room and saw that the pin had been moved to a different weight.  I tried to change the pin and after a bit of wiggling and banging and thinking and feeling around, I discovered that there was a little button on the underside of the pin that you had to push in, in order to unlock the pin and pull it out.

Why did I fail the first two nights and succeed the third?  Simple.  The third night I *knew* there was a solution.  The first night I was defeated by doubt and the second night the doubt was reinforced to the point where I didn't even try.